Bolesni pacijent čeka lekara.

The sick patient is waiting for the doctor.

Breakdown of Bolesni pacijent čeka lekara.

• lekar: doctor
• čekati: to wait
• pacijent: patient
• bolestan: sick or ill

Questions & Answers about Bolesni pacijent čeka lekara.

Why is lekara used instead of lekar?

Because lekara is the form used for a masculine animate direct object.

• lekar = dictionary form, nominative singular
• lekara = accusative singular for an animate masculine noun

In this sentence, lekara is the object of čeka (waits for / is waiting for), so Serbian changes the noun form.

A very important pattern in Serbian is:

• masculine animate accusative = genitive form
• masculine inanimate accusative = nominative form

So:

• Vidim lekara. = I see the doctor.
• Vidim sto. = I see the table.

Here lekar is animate, so it becomes lekara.

Why is there no Serbian word for for after čeka?

Because the Serbian verb čekati takes a direct object, while English uses wait for.

So English says:

• The patient is waiting for the doctor.

But Serbian literally structures it more like:

• The patient waits the doctor.

That is why you get:

• čeka lekara

and not something with a separate word meaning for.

This is a very common thing to learn with Serbian verbs: you often cannot translate prepositions word-for-word from English. You need to learn which case or construction each Serbian verb requires.